[Blender] THE FUNDAMENTALS of Exporting Rigged characters to Unreal, Unity, or ANY GameEngine

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⚠️This video was the first one in what became a series about Blender & Game Engines. Some recommendations I made in this video have changed and they may keep changing. Check out the full playlist to stay up to date!
• Blender to Game Engine...
LINKS
● Free scene files
⇒ gum.co/cgdive_free
● "The Art of Effective Rigging" - rigging course by Pierrick
(enter "cgdive" at check-out to get 10% off)
⇒ gumroad.com/a/183891059/AeQfrF
● Arigify addon - one-click solution to prepare Rigify rigs for Game Engines
(enter "cgdive" at check-out to get 5% off)
⇒ gumroad.com/a/361100403
NOTE: I can't provide support for Arigify.Please ask the addon developer directly!
Since creating the video, we created an alternative addon based on the CGDive workflow. It is a bit more complex than Arigify but it allows greater flexibility and works on different rigs (rather then just Rigify). Check it out here:
• Game Rig Tools (Blende...
gumroad.com/a/598294451/OmHCS
RECOMMENDED PRODUCTS
❖Rig Anything With Rigify (coupon code "cgdive" = 20% off)
toshicg.gumroad.com/l/rigify
Alive! Animation course in Blender
gumroad.com/a/183891059/DmdxO
❖The art of effective rigging in Blender (coupon code "cgdive" = 10% off))
gumroad.com/a/183891059/AeQfrF
❖Hard Surface Rigging In Blender
blendermarket.com/products/ha...
❖RBF Drivers
gumroad.com/a/348001395/XzWpB
❖Bonera
gumroad.com/a/99062899/oXuxm
If you struggle to export rigged and animated characters from Blender to any game engine (Unreal, Unity, Godot, etc.) chances are that you're missing some fundamental knowledge. This is the video I wish I had when I tried to figure out how to import animated skeletal meshes from b3d into a game engine.
To get reliable results you need to understand the basic difference between a 3d creation suite like blender and a 3d game engine like UE4, Cry Engine, source. Once you figure out what is being exported and how the process is fairly simple.
This is just the first in a series of videos but I consider it the most important one.
In future videos, I'll try to cover specific export settings, tools that make your life easier, etc. But all of that won't be as useful if you don't understand the fundamentals.
RELATED VIDEOS from CGDive
● Crash Course in Blender Armatures
⇒ • [Blender 2.8~3.6] Rig ...
● Rigify basic course
⇒ • Rigify Fundamental for...
● Weight Painting videos
⇒ • Blender Weight Paint T...
Chapters
0:00 Intro & recommended videos
2:03 The Fundamental Problem
4:01 Basic Problem #1 Fancy Controls
7:33 Basic Problem #2 Shape Keys
8:50 Basic Problem #3 Rigged meshes need Vertex Weights
12:59 Basic Problem #4 Modifiers
15:30 Basic Problem #5 Bendy Bones
18:42 Basic Problems - A Summary
19:46 Advanced Problem #1 Bone Hierarchy
23:26 Solution #1 "TGT-bones" (for new rigs)
27:30 Solution #2 "TGT-bones" (for existing rigs)
39:32 Advanced Problem #2 Squash and Stretch
39:46 Solution #1 - Avoid squash and stretch
41:01 Understanding the squash and stretch issue
43:36 Solution #2 Disconnect all stretchy bones
45:39 The "All-around" Solution
46:03 Arigify (addon)
51:36 FBX export - generalized settings
53:04 Export results (UE4 / Unreal Engine)
57:34 Results recap (Unreal)
59:11 Export results (Unity)
1:00:50 What's next (also please Like and Share :) )
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[@CGDive]

⚠️This video was the first one in what became a series on Blender & Game Engines. Some recommendations I made in this video have changed and they may keep changing. Check out the full playlist to stay up to date! kzbin.info/aero/PLdcL5aF8ZcJvCyqWeCBYVGKbQgrQngen3 LINKS FROM THE VIDEO ● Free scene files ⇒ gum.co/cgdive_free ● Arigify addon - one-click solution to prepare Rigify rigs for Game Engines (enter "cgdive" at check-out to get 5% off) ⇒ gumroad.com/a/361100403 ● "The Art of Effective Rigging" - rigging course by Pierrick (enter "cgdive" at check-out to get 10% off) ⇒ gumroad.com/a/183891059/AeQfrF ●CGDive Discord Group ⇒ discord.gg/YFH5HUv

[@rmt3589]

Do you plan to redo the video so it's up to date?

[@CGDive]

@@rmt3589 what is out of date?

[@CGDive]

@@rmt3589 The core ideas of the video are still valid. Recommendations change all the time so keep an eye on my channel and will share the latest ones.

[@3d3rbart]

Thank you very much for your loyalty and honesty, I was honored to know you and learned a lot on your hands, and the course you offer is worth much more than its price ... I have previously bought another course that is more expensive, and its owner did not answer my inquiries.

[@CGDive]

No problem. Thank you for the nice message and for buying my course. I am happy to answer any questions if I can :)

[@USBEN.]

This covered each and every doubt of mine after having made and rigged a character for my game. Thankyou.

[@TheRoadTraveledByFew]

Stumbled upon your channel while investigating the details of transferring Skeletal Meshes from Blender to Unreal. I find your videos very informative and nuanced .. Thank you for making them.

[@3DRodney]

This video was fantastic. I purchased your rigify course last year, you really create excellent material, thank you.

[@CGDive]

Thanks a lot for purchasing the course! Means a lot to me! Expect more blender + game engines videos soon!

[@tactilevisions]

Fantastic video. I love your way of explaining things. Very clear, straight to the point, not too fast, not too slow. Thank you

[@VentelHD]

Super good video! Im a 3d artist and importing a rig for the first time in unreal. Now i understand everything!

[@sebastian3747]

Thanks so much for that video - pure Gold!!

[@michaelp3ddesigns]

This is incredible. Great tutorial! Thank you.

[@mauricecarlberg2224]

Thank you so much, Ive been struggling with all this and you organized my thoughts and problems with this video... Keep´m coming as there are very little material over the matter...! Just bought the arigify addon and will try it out... Happy Holidays

[@CGDive]

Awesome! More on the same topic coming in 2021! Happy, happy! :D

[@ChrixB]

that by far the best tutorial on how to deal with rig for game engine with Blender, thank you so much for doing that !

[@4bsmSlicer]

Man! Your videos are awesome! I had an awesome journey through blender with your tutorials on rig. Now I watched this which solved a bunch of my problems! I Think I'll join your patreon for a while just to support this awesome free stuff You've been putting up! Thank you so much!

[@CGDive]

Awesome and thanks for the support! Please watch my newer videos on game rigs as well. We also released an addon that may be useful gumroad.com/a/286332019

[@kloa4219]

Protip: If the Arigify addon changes the scale of your rig. Highlight the mesh and metarig armature, ctrl+a, and apply transforms. Then generate the rig again

[@CGDive]

Right, always work with applied transforms or you're asking for trouble.:P

[@quattrocity9620]

Fixed my problem within the first 12 minutes! Thanks so much!

[@eucharistenjoyer]

Absolute top quality!

[@joelsaishler]

This video is the answer to my prayers! Thank you for posting it. Fantastic content.

[@CGDive]

Awesome.

[@black1_moon122]

Nice man this just a solid hard work and effort you just did here. really good video with great infos it really helped me so im going to subscribe

[@ZaidMohammedAlShaheed]

ma dood, I studied your stuff, really cool! learned so much, I THINK! I resolved that issue you had with the file naming in a strange way, not sure it will work but on the surface it seems that it worked. so what I did. I selected the DEF bones Pasted them in a new blender file I deleted everything it carried but kept the Def. did the process if cleaning constrains, fixing the parenting, did the whole thing and copied and pasted it back to the original file and CRT+J and started the constrains and so far it worked, but I got to take the rig to the engine to make sure things works. it saves A LOT OF TIME over renaming everything.

[@Atezian]

This is the best video ive ever watched on the topic. Thankyou!!

[@CGDive]

Wow, thank you! I did try to cover a lot of topics. Glad it was useful.

[@workflowinmind]

This is gold! Such a comprehensive video, subscribed!

[@CGDive]

Thanks, man!

[@edofactory]

I wish I could have watched a video like this 7 years ago, when I started trying to make games with animated characters, so many projects that I might not have abandoned because of this problems

[@CGDive]

Yeah, Gabriel. I wish there were clearer guidelines and pipelines for this stuff. Hopefully my videos help a bit.

[@edofactory]

@@CGDive Helped a lot!! until today I have not found a good guideline for this anywhere else, Thank you very much!!

[@squarerootof2]

Ikr. So much time wasted! The whole playlist is pure gold. Thanks for all this amazing work, Todor, and for making it available for free!!!

[@CGDive]

@@squarerootof2 No problem, man. Thanks for watching!

[@uayten]

I bought the addon with your code, you are amazing :)

[@InterUse]

Small note about guns - truly proper way to do it, if we are talking about any sort of interactive approach to guns/equipment in general, would be to export character and its equipment separately and use sockets or similar systems inside of the engine to assign equipment.

[@CGDive]

Agreed! Thank you for your input. My goal was to explain what can be exported and what can't.

[@soldatderschoenheit903]

Awesome dude!

[@LingA1ing]

super clear and helpful, thank you

[@dianaobozova]

Thanks for your hard work

[@activemotionpictures]

Wohh0000!!! The video is here!! Thank you, sir!! This will have a lot of views!!!

[@CGDive]

Thanks man. I was going to message you about this but I guess you saw it first :D

[@shahidhussain6629]

I am getting all rigging courses. Thanks a lot.

[@CGDive]

Thank you, sir! :]

[@serban1987]

Thank you very much , i was pissed of that my rigs don`t work in UE5. Keep going you are very helpfull :)

[@andre3182]

Thanks so much! this is really helpful!

[@CGDive]

Awesome, glad to hear that, Andre!

[@alpaslanpata6657]

This is a must see for anyone who is trying to learn this stuff by themselves. Great bundle of knowledge about most of the problems anyone may encounter.

[@davidffortesmeireles5328]

wow great video

[@Slozhny84]

Great research

[@zapptos1792]

You are a lifesaver!

[@CGDive]

Haha, cheers :)

[@luciddream2249]

thank you so much!👍

[@mrlukanik4963]

Your effort deserves like/subscribe)

[@MCCDEMON]

How come that anyone gives a thumbs down? Weird ppl are everywhere...Todor you are one of those geniuses who make difficult stuff easy to understand. Everybody should damn buy your stuff and support you. Fantabulous work you do here!!! Thanks so much.

[@CGDive]

Haha, thanks! The like/dislike ratio is great. I am sure some people are just in a bad mood, or the video didn't solve *their* problem, or they didn't like my accent etc. :D

[@zaqueufelipeart5687]

1 hour of explanation :) Thank you very much, I had complications with Stretch and Squase, you helped me a lot! Thank you very much. (Br)

[@CGDive]

Oh, we are just getting started :P Stretch and squash confuses a lot of people, I was confused myself at one point. Glad it was useful!

[@SuperMontana2008]

This is brilliant stuff, really interested in what you come up with. Serious shortage of rigging for games and exporting info.

[@CGDive]

Glad it was useful. I have plans for videos that will keep me buys for months. Let me know if you have any suggestions :)

[@SuperMontana2008]

@@CGDive a complete custom workflow would be nice, to show the power of the tools. I.e. something like four armed character with face rig and back pack , using rigify and arigify into unreal. Doesn't have to be brilliant artwork , it's the workflow that's important because obviously you know your stuff.

[@CGDive]

​@@SuperMontana2008 That's a great suggestion actually. I can't promise I'll do exactly that. My idea was to do exactly this: a complete custom workflow. But I was planning to keep the character a little bit simpler. But I'll see if I could integrate some of your suggestions. Thanks a bunch!

[@SuperMontana2008]

@@CGDive thanks, whatever you do I'm sure will be big help. The power of these tools is the modular approach and fast setup. That's why I mentioned the 4 arms etc. Hopefully making weird creatures into game engines less painful

[@CGDive]

@@SuperMontana2008 Yeah, I'll definitely avoid the basic human. But I have to keep things manageable in terms of video production as well.

[@BainesMkII]

A word of warning for UE4: Even if it looks like your model exported properly, UE4 may still be scaling it incorrectly for some functionality. Even workflows that I've seen promoted by Epic employees can result in issues such as improperly scaled Sockets and improperly automatic generated colliders. I feel the issues are in part due to Epic trying to "fix" the scaling difference, but doing so incompletely.

[@CGDive]

This is probably the thing that I hate the most about the UE4 workflow. If you change the unit scale 0.01 the export should work smoothly. But that makes some parts of Blender behave a bit weirdly... There is no perfect solution at this time.

[@Butterbilk]

Hi Tudor. Thanks a ton for all the effort you put into these rigging tips. They have been extremely helpful. I have a small suggestion for your future videos. It seems you have a habit of wiggling your view/cursor around when you are trying to 'point' at something on the screen, like at 54:07. This is quite jarring to look at and happens quite a lot in most of your videos. You might consider trying to hold the view/cursor steady when demonstrating things as it is easier to see what is going on for the viewer. Again, great work and thanks for continuing to make these :)

[@CGDive]

Great point. I bet I do a lot of annoying things and unless someone points them out I'll never notice them. Thanks for the tip!

[@shreyaskhambhayata7715]

GOD DAYUM this was EPIC

[@CGDive]

haha, thank you :)

[@shreyaskhambhayata7715]

@@CGDive Bro i LOVE YOU

[@Trench_762]

Thanks my question was the first one answered. As someone who comes from game engines and just learning animation I saw that riggify had all these fancy controls and immediately I was confused cause I was like, "what but that cant go into the game engine so how the hell does that work?". So yeah thank you, very well explained.

[@CDCST57]

Great video ! We quickly see that you have some expertise in the field! I have a question about the technique you show at : 37:04 I use a custom skeleton (which is a mix between the ipi soft skeleton and that of berkel) is what I can use the technique you show in this part of the video to deport my animation from my custom skeleton to that of the Unreal Engine 4 mannequin and have my animations on the standard Unreal Engine 4 skeleton for a export ? Thank you for the answer

[@CGDive]

Hi. First I am not familiar with " ipi soft skeleton and that of berkel" (?) But generally yes, you can use this technique on any rig. But in my next videos I showed another approach that is even easier to perform. Please see the next videos in the series. here is the playlsit kzbin.info/aero/PLdcL5aF8ZcJvCyqWeCBYVGKbQgrQngen3

[@3d3rbart]

please make animation course , I like your way of explanation, and I will buy it, God willing, regardless of its price

[@CGDive]

That's interesting, I'll have to think about it but I am not a good animator..

[@SomeOne-ye1nn]

Thank you so much for your tutorials, especially your rigify course! Always with clear explanations and examples , it's really a great resource! :) I've been following that one and building on it to make animations for a humanoid strafing in 8 directions to blend together in Unity. Could you maybe provide some support on how to properly set up root motion for animations like that and how to import those to a game engine like Unity or Unreal?

[@CGDive]

Right, root motion is something that comes up a lot so I'll definitely cover it but give me some time. :)

[@SomeOne-ye1nn]

@@CGDive Of course, I'll be looking forward to it! BTW your response time is crazy man.. thanks for caring and stay safe :)

[@CGDive]

@@SomeOne-ye1nn I was just on youtube, it's not always that fast lol Oh in the meantime take a look at this and see if it gives you any hints kzbin.info/www/bejne/emS2int6f6qkb8k

[@SomeOne-ye1nn]

@@CGDive Sent me on the right way, a few videos later i realised the bone hierarchy that rigify created needed to be adjusted a bit. Now it works like a charm :) Thanks again!

[@CGDive]

@@SomeOne-ye1nn That's awesome to hear! 👍

[@leonidlazaryev4392]

Thank you for your tutorials. A bit offtopic, but I believe there is a slightly better workflow for attaching props to rigged meshes. You could create additional bone for prop and then attach object to that bone inside a game engine itself. This way might be more gameplay implementation friendly.

[@CGDive]

Right, right! You're absolutely right. In this video, I was just trying to illustrate a point about what can be imported and how.

[@lovelearn341]

I have to say, your channel is very helpful. I'm currently learning rigging, etc. What has caught my attention is, how on earth can you remember all of this in your head? Personally, I find it challenging to learn Blender and Unreal Engine simultaneously, but your mind seems to handle everything. What do you do professionally, and how long have you been involved in 3D stuff? It's incredible how much knowledge you absorb.

[@CGDive]

Hi, I have been doing 3D as a hobby for ages, I guess. Also professionally in the last 10-ish years. As to how I remember everything... I don't. A lot of stuff becomes second nature with experience but I often forget technical details and have to watch my own tutorials ;) This video took 2-3 months to research, prepare, record, and edit. I understand the topic but that doesn't mean I can recite everything in my sleep. Don't worry about remembering everything. Understand the fundamentals, then figure out a personalized workflow that gets you the results you want.

[@plyczkowski]

At 11:40 the proper proper way would be to add an additional bone for the weapon I think

[@CGDive]

Hey Pavel, you look familiar, not sure why :P Thanks for watching and commenting. Yeah, having a prop bone would give you more control. My goal was to show that proper weight painting is necessary for games.

[@mustafakhan5461]

I just want to say "THANK YOU SO MUCH"

[@CGDive]

Thank you too!

[@paulstevens5023]

Your tutorials on rigify are amazing, thank you. For this could you not just export with the exclude non deforming bones option?

[@CGDive]

No, that won't cut it. I can't remember if I said it in this video but this setting is not fail-proof. When some bones are in a complex parent-child relationship with Deform bones, these additional bones end up being exported.

[@arthurgentz2]

Hello, I appreciate your contributions to the community, making a 1 hour video is no joke. Though, i have very little time most days, so before I sit through this video, i'd like to confirm some of the content it covers. I was actually looking for a video that would explain the workflow/process for the following: I have 2 rigs (character & weapon/tool) I had to add childOf constraints to both the character & weapon/tool rigs for the animations i made. I tried selecting everything that the animation would need and exported it to Unity. However, the fbx in Unity only has the character model, and the animations consequently play without the weapon/tool in the character's hands. So i guess my question is how to export 2 rigs to unity and make their animations work together like in Blender? Is this covered in the video?

[@CGDive]

As far as I know, that is not possible. If you want to export the character and weapon as one whole entity then they have to be controlled by a single armature. Or you can export them separately and combine them in the engine if you have the coding skills to do it :)

[@yppats3370]

Thank you so much! I spent so long trying to figure it out because unity kept doing some weirdo stuff with my rig. My Solution: 27:43 | It was kinda tedious but worth it.

[@CGDive]

Great. I should mention that we now have an addon that simplifies this process kzbin.info/www/bejne/n4ulqWR_bNugh5I

[@filmdon2475]

Hey Todor I love your rigify course! Wanted to know if you knew how to retarget mocap data to a rigify control rig. Thanks!

[@CGDive]

I can't give you an exact workflow at this time but this is definitely coming in 2021. The UE to Rigify tools have some of that capability so it may be part of this game engine series. Lately there have been a huge number of retargeting addons. It will take a while to review them and come up with a workflow that I feel good about. Another addon that comes up often from knowledgeable people is "rig on the fly". You may want to give it a try as well.

[@RiggingMentor]

Rokoko has a good free (with account creation) retarget plugin that works well and speeds up FBX import. The Epic UE to Rigify tools have a retarget setup also but another good retarget tool is gumroad.com/l/renim

[@_s_s_world_]

super detailed course ! but i love how you add text info with names in overlay ? and i cant find how to do that(

[@CGDive]

Text info with names and overlays? I am not sure what you mean. Can you add a time code where it appears?

[@AnKlMa]

Damn, I need Arigify but for a regular Armature. Never used Rigify and everything in my game is already set up with a normal Armature. But thank you so much for this video, it's amazing!!!

[@CGDive]

Hey, recently we made our own addon. It's a bit less automatic but it works with all sorts of rigs: kzbin.info/www/bejne/n4ulqWR_bNugh5I

[@AnKlMa]

@@CGDive Thx for the reply :) Yeah I've been binge watching your videos today and just stumbled across your addon. Definitely going to check it out and try to support you

[@ForwardThinkingTam]

Hi Todor - a question about this: what is to stop me omitting the TGT layer altogether, then just unchecking Connected on the deform bones, and exporting the hierarchy to a game engine like that? (I am mostly using Copy Constraints with World Space, and Maintain Volume, Y, Local on particularly stretchy bones. There are a couple of janky ones where it looks like i would need to tweak constraints, but it looks like it is mostly behaving itself...? )

[@ForwardThinkingTam]

(I think this is kind of what you were talking about with the second solution, but it looked like you were still using a flat hierarchy..?)

[@CGDive]

Hi. I don't really understand the question. How does the Connected option relate to the TGT setup?

[@mostafamostafa-fi7kr]

thank u so much for your tutorials they are very helpful since u working for all engines i ask in unity engine there is new package name is "animation rigging " that allow you to change any bone position and rotation during an animation in runtime . i tried to use this on my character that i rigged in blender . first i rigged in blender whit and send it to unity and any humanoid animation worked correctly on my character but when i use animation rigging on my character no matter what i do my character mesh fly into space i ask about this problem in discords but no one was understanding me bc i didn't find people to use it i hope you find a solution about this and thanks

[@CGDive]

Hey, unfortunately, I am not aware of this new package. I try to cover the basics of all engines but that doesn't mean that I know everything about all of them haha But I'll make a note about this and I may cover it in the future. You can try asking in our discord as well discord.gg/YFH5HUv

[@faqizogli]

@CGDive hay, thanks a lot... can you tell somethin about Auto rig pro and its FBX exporter feature please ?

[@CGDive]

Not yet but I recently bought Auto Rig pro with the intention of learning it well and reviewing it on the channel. Expect that in 2021 but I can't say when exactly. But from what I know it has it's own method to prepare rigs for games. However the manual says to not stretch the rigs so that probably means that it doesn't have solution for the squash/stretch problem.

[@gvilas]

"if you want to export animations to Unreal, Unity or whatever..." Godot poker face LMAO

[@CGDive]

Was not intended to mean that Godot is a "whatever" :)

[@33Demonic]

Bro plz make video on how to import animated armature with tex in unreal from mixamo

[@eritumakafakafo3008]

Can i delete the bones i dont want in my rig while i work on TGT workflow? I mean i ll be retargeting character to the mannequin fom UE4 and the mannequin has 3 bones in arms and i got 4 so i cant manage to place the retargeting well so i wonder if i can delete the DEF bones from my generated rig

[@CGDive]

Yeah, you can leave only the bones you want.

[@ValeGoG]

10/10

[@CGDive]

Спасибо :Р

[@martinschiffer4280]

Around minute 12:00 you say it is wrong to parent with child of constraint, but all tutorials do that, if I have a model and a rig just like the one in the video (made with rigify) and parent with child of constraint, will it be ok?

[@CGDive]

As you saw from the demo, it won't work. What you could do is have a prop bone for the pistol and you can apply Child of directly to the bone. That should work.

[@KriGeta]

Wow amazing and here I am need exactly opposite 😅

[@CGDive]

Opposite? You want to import from Game to Blender?

[@KriGeta]

@@CGDive yeah that complicated model is made in unreal

[@CGDive]

@@KriGeta Got it. I'll work on workflows in the opposite direction. But it will take time ...

[@KriGeta]

@@CGDive indeed it will.

[@THISISSPARTA827]

suppose you wanted to do an ik/fk switch setup with a rig with tgt bones. would you duplicate the tgt bones in each limb once to create an fk system and use the existing tgt bones as an IK system? or would you duplicate the tgt bones twice and create an IK system from the first duplicate and then create an FK system from the second duplicate?

[@CGDive]

I don't recommend the TGT system anymore. I recommend you create your rig as usual, then extract the game rig as in my "game ready rigs" videos. You can do whatever you like in your control rig.

[@elviokill]

41:30 Blender have an option for inherit scale on Bone Tab. If you don't set it to "None" the child will stretch more because of the parent scale. That is another way to fix this type of problem without disconnecting the bones.

[@CGDive]

Right, that... I always avoid this because a long time ago I learned that "it's not a good idea" and "it's just for quick tests". But I haven't actually looked into it and experimented. Thanks for reminding me. So have you experimented with this? Have you used this technique to export characters to game engines without any problems?

[@elviokill]

@@CGDive I have a little project and I am not a professional, but until now nothing seems out of place to me. I've been using Blender to export a character to Godot with GLTF and Better Collada. Thank you for your attention and nice work.

[@CGDive]

@@elviokill Thanks for your input! Yes, it seems that Godot likes gltf.

[@4115steve]

So now that godot supports blender files has any of the blender rigging requirements changed. Thanks for making all these videos.

[@CGDive]

I don't know for sure but my guess is that it hasn't. Even if Blend files are supported, the data you can use in Godot is being converted one way or another. And the game engine requirements haven't changed.

[@4115steve]

@@CGDive thanks bro

[@wilimelano]

Hello Todor, great teaching, thank you. I have a problem: I made a character in Blender, made the eyes, ears, nose and teeth separate objects. I have tried parenting these objects the way you describe in this video but the problem is that when I pose my character, the face deforms, and the objects being parented to the bone, offset from the face. The only thing that works to keep these objects in the right place is parent to vertex of the face mesh. But this does not translate to Unity. What can I do. Thanks in advance.

[@CGDive]

If I understand the problem correctly that sounds like a parenting issue. Possibly the eyes etc were already patented to something else before you patented them to the armature. Try this: Set the character in the default pose. Unparent all of these additional objects. Alt+p (keep transformations). Also remove any armature modifier and vertex groups just in case. This should remove any existing parenting. Now parent them again to the armature. Let me know if that works.

[@wilimelano]

@@CGDive Yes! Thank you! Removing the vertex groups and reparenting did it, sorry for silly question 😬

[@CGDive]

@@wilimelano Awesome. Not silly at all. I've banged my head against the same wall :P

[@dark-flame-master]

Other more thing. When I export a loop animation into Unreal, I notice a "clic" movement just in the loop when comes back to play again the first frame. ¿Do you know a way to resolve this? Thanks again. Edit: Resolved this way. Removing all other keyframes not between the export range. For some reason Unreal imports other frames outside the defined range.

[@CGDive]

I am guessing you exported the "repeating" keyframe at the beginning and the end of the action. So if your loop is 24 frames, the action your exported is probably 25 frames long. That's a good question actually. I can't give you the exact steps to avoid this but I'll make a note and I'll probably make a video about this.

[@IceWorkzz]

Thanks for the tut, please how to i export my character to Iclone 7 or cc3

[@CGDive]

Sorry, I don't work with iclone or cc3.

[@greyly_]

I assume that if you don't export a proper bone hierarchy, you will also run into problems in UE4 with blend spaces, animation montages, aim offset, etc where the engine is blending animations based on the skeleton.

[@CGDive]

Good points! Yes, there may be many problems associated with bad hierarchy. I think the physics in UE4 are a quick and fun way to test it tho :)

[@alkandrafilms420]

Hey, great video! New sub here :) I just wanted to ask but I already kinda guess what the answer is (but still have some hope🤞) Will Spring bones work in game engines?

[@CGDive]

Well :) If you bake the spring bones they can be exported. But not the love simulation. That said, modern game engines should have some sort of spring bone implementation, so you can have this effect in runtime.

[@alkandrafilms420]

@@CGDive Thanks for your reply 🤗

[@placebo_yue]

i have a rig with a bone that controls the body, and bones for the legs (it's a monster so it's a roundish body with 4 tentacle legs) In blender i managed to make the body rotate and keep the legs pointing down, so i can easily create idle animations where the body shakes a little but the legs stay in the floor. No IKs or fancy stuff, just disconnected legs. But on unity, since the bone for the body is parent of everything else, the whole mesh rotates or moves with it. What am i doing wrong?

[@CGDive]

Honestly, I can't imagine the exact setup so it's hard to say. Send me a file if you like and I take a look. You can join us on Discord.

[@TaygunGencosmanoglu]

Hello, you touch to point very clear allways. I can say I am a begginer at rigging. I have a question if I understand all clearly or not: Lets say I made a character for Unreal Engine, he has got control rigs, shapekeys with dirvers, modifiers and some cloth simulations. And when I export him to Unreal Engine it will be exported only with its deformation bones. And those other modifiers, shapekey drivers et cetera will not work. But before exporting the character to Unreal Engine, If I will prepare and bake all of his necessary animations (crouch,turn, jump, idle, run, die, attack et cetera) inside Blender itself using all these modifiers and shapekey drivers and simulations then I will be able to run this character with its baked animations in Unreal Engine, right? Thank you so much!

[@CGDive]

I think you understand correctly. You will probably face problems along the way but you can solve them one by one

[@TaygunGencosmanoglu]

@@CGDive You and PixellicaCG both are amazing! I learned too much things about how to construct workflows and fundamentals of believable face/body rigging from you and him! I am now trying to give a life to ''William Wallace'' char which is in my portfolio in Artstation. Although he has got 5 layers of objects (Tartan, armor belt, sword sheath belt, leather armor, shirt)which are on top of each other on William's torso, all these objects do not even 1 mm intersects to each other when I rig and animate them! All tests are amazing! And I have made very believeable face rigs by learning from your tutorials! Now I am planing to import some kind of locomotion animation packs from Mixamo and transfer them to body and then combine them with face rigs and animations and then prepare its bones to export to UE5. Thank you so much cuz I am about to create my own workflow by watching your tutorials!

[@Hulgore]

Can I ask you : how do you manage to use rigify on just one arm ? When I try to do the same I get an error message telling me "DEF.spine.003 not found", would you happen to know why ?

[@CGDive]

Only one arm shouldn't be a problem, If you share your file, I should be able to find the problem. (metarig only is fine)

[@Hulgore]

@@CGDive Thank you for your answer. Here is the file : file.io/c3ebYdOd7PaR I'm actually trying to make the rig for 2 arms, I asked about one arm because I thought I could then apply the same method for both

[@CGDive]

@@Hulgore It says: The file you requested has been deleted. Try again with another upload service :)

[@Hulgore]

@@CGDive I've been trying to post other links but youtube seems to instantly delete my comments, is there another social media where I could send you the file ?

[@CGDive]

@@Hulgore yeah, you can email me or catch me on Discord. Here is the info cgdive.com/contact/

[@Prudenprocom]

My baked mesh doesn't go to the UV map on my left even when I follow your steps and my unity character is still grey

[@CGDive]

Sorry, I am confused :) The UV map on your left? And where did I show any steps concerning UVs? Can you share the time in the video you're referring to?

[@CopyCatBlack]

sir can u tell me how to give other character same rigged with animation to it cuz i tried it myself and its not animating well how i animate it .Got 2 different character and 1 armature(rig) PleaseHelp

[@CGDive]

If the characters are using the same armature or even a different armature with the same bone names, then you should be able to apply the same "Action" to them. This should work unless the proportion of the characters are quite different. That's all I can say with the information you've given me. :)

[@CopyCatBlack]

@@CGDive ThankYouu Soo Much

[@MM-pl5ed]

Do softwares like iClone, MetaHuman, DAZ Studios, Character Creator 4.0, Constructor 3.0, Maya Studios, Blender, 3DMax export created characters as .json extension files too?

[@CGDive]

Never heard of that. What is your goal.

[@MM-pl5ed]

@@CGDive some new games are accepting importing new characters as .json file format. We are testing animations depending which gamecore-engine is used in each one separately.

[@CGDive]

@@MM-pl5ed I have no idea. json is generally a "configuration" file format. E.g. it can hold a configuration of a character creator. I haven't heard of usage as a export file format.

[@ricardoalcantara5846]

Great tutorial! You sould leave your patreon link in all of your videos description.

[@CGDive]

Thanks! Good idea. I just started Patreon and I just have the link under newer videos. And I think you became a patron yourself, right? Thanks you very much for your support!

[@ricardoalcantara5846]

​@@CGDive Yes I did, you totally deserve it, I hope I can raise in the future!

[@IrvanQadri]

we should invest in blender game engine addon like Armory3D to avoid any kind of exporting annoyances!

[@CGDive]

Armory has a lot of potential, indeed. There is also upbge (or something like that). However things may need to be simplified for a game engine, even if it is integrated in the 3d app... So you may see the same problems in e.g. armory. That's just a guess at this point though. I'll make a note to check out armory and upbge

[@kevindoohan4993]

Should I parent the breast bone to the chest bone or the clavicle bone? (Sorry if my english is bad)

[@CGDive]

The chest bone makes more sense in my opinion.

[@andallicansayis]

can someone help please? when i export fbx without leaf bones - it seems like some bones are missing the tail

[@CGDive]

Why do you export without leaf bones?

[@andallicansayis]

@@CGDive leaf bones create additional bones in unity called "bone_end". if i delete the end-bone, the armature works just fine as in blender. should i manually delete all end-bones or there's another way?

[@CGDive]

@@andallicansayis yeah, the leaf bone function FBX import and export is unreliable. It's best to manually delete the leaf bones.

[@andallicansayis]

@@CGDive thank you!

[@Neothunder240]

Hi! I hope you can read this. I tried using the TGT bones for an existing rig. Did everything exactly as you showed, but the animation actions just won't work. I believe it's because the TGT bones don't have the keyframe info of the DEF bones, as I used the original DEF bones to animate. How can I fix that? Why do they seem to work just fine for you?

[@CGDive]

If you set up TGT correctly they don't need to have keyframes directly applied to them. Because they will be baked on export and the keys will be added. I recommend watching my newer videos where I presented a new approach that may be easier to follow. We even made an addon to automate the new workflow.

[@Neothunder240]

@@CGDive I'll check the new videos. When I tried I followed this one step by step and did exactly as shown. Everything works except the animation won't show because the DEF bones are locked and the TGT bones have no animation and this carries to the export. I confirmed this is the case because this time I didn't delete the IK bones from the DEF skeleton, they aren't parented to anything so they don't interfere with the hierarchy, but now I can see them move while all the other DEF bones are locked.

[@CGDive]

@@Neothunder240 Hmmmmm, not sure what's going on but animations should work. Send me a blend file if you like. I'll try to figure out what's up when I have a minute.

[@Neothunder240]

@@CGDive Thanks! How can I send it to you?

[@CGDive]

@@Neothunder240 There are a bunch of ways to contact me cgdive.com/contact/ You just need to upload your blend file somewhere.

[@Cos3D]

But you can still import animations from blender to the game engine if you bake them in the file, its just u wont be able to modify them in the game engine correct ?

[@Cos3D]

so the animations would just play over and over ? so for scenes like a waterfall that would be ok or from rpg chrachters doing some small movements while standing still

[@CGDive]

I have no idea what you are refering to. This is a 1-hour long video and your questions starts with "but". What exactly are you "butting"? :D

[@markanderson3967]

Having an issue with importing my characters over to Unreal 5. Although it looks and works flawlessly in Blender, (using basic human meta-rig) going into the animations tab after import, all the bones are displayed in incorrect locations. The hierarchy looks ok from what I can tell but hand bones are where forearms go, forearms located where upper arm should go, shoulders are stuck against the spine. same thing with the legs. the base of the spine is sunk all the way to the floor. Weirdly the mesh deforms properly when rotating even in the wrong position but I can only imagine what hellish nightmares this will cause when the time comes to set up IK and joint constraints down the line. I've followed step for step countless tutorials still not sure what I'm missing. any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[@CGDive]

This is just a deceiving appearance of Unreal bones. In fact, everything is exactly as it should be. I should make a video to explain this properly.

[@markanderson3967]

@@CGDive A video explaining this would be incredibly helpful. I've spent the last 4 weeks scratching my head. I've rebuilt armatures and meshes, tried importing/exporting more times than I can count and have spent literal hours googling this. At the very least it'd be original content since there doesn't seem be many videos covering it. At least I can take solace in knowing it won't cause adverse effects albeit a trigger for my OCD.

[@CGDive]

Haha. I'll try to do it but try to accept the ue visualization. It tends to look like the previous bone in Blender. So if you select the firearm it looks like the upper arm is selected.

[@Haroon3D]

how to make automatic bone? as you mentioned for bicep?

[@CGDive]

It can be done with constraints or drivers? Constraints are a bit easier to use in general. There are endless ways in which you can automate stuff. I may make a video about that in the future and I already showed examples of automated bones in my advanced Rigify course.

[@Haroon3D]

@@CGDive I will check t hat :-) check your discord i have texted you there about Export System of blender,

[@ONIscrooge]

The mesh exports just fine, but the armature is weird where the bones reposition to it's parent's position all the way up the hierarchy, I've tried every combination of settings and naming for the bones to fix this but I still have no idea why it's doing this.

[@CGDive]

Sorry, I am not sure what you mean by "the armature is weird where the bones reposition to it's parent's position all the way up the hierarchy". I also don't know which technique you're attempting. Did you watch my later tutorials? The rig preparation was streamlined quite a bit. We also released an addon that automates the whole process. kzbin.info/aero/PLdcL5aF8ZcJvCyqWeCBYVGKbQgrQngen3

[@dark-flame-master]

Hi. First of all, thank you very much for this tutorial, you help us a lot. I followed all the procedure but I have the following issue. When I export the mesh and bones, they import correctly into Unreal. The problem is that when I select the armature and export the animation I get the message "Can't detect import type. No mesh is found or animation track" Any idea why? Thanks Edit: After trying things, I found that checking "Bake Animation ✓" > "All Actions ✓" in my case resolves this issue. Maybe this help someone.

[@CGDive]

Hey, thanks for your message and for sharing your solution. Please keep in mind that this is an ongoing series and I keep updating it. Please see the playlist: kzbin.info/aero/PLdcL5aF8ZcJvCyqWeCBYVGKbQgrQngen3 You'll see that I do things a little differently later on. :)

[@jetvlz8592]

What if there are two separate rigs. Hair and Body Rigs, both baked. How can I match them in unity?... I think my question is also out of the topic I guess but yeah.. Thanks for this tutorial, I managed to import my animation in unity. My struggle now is how to sync baked hair and body animations.

[@CGDive]

Hi. Do they have to be separate rigs and why? Do you want to make some sort of character creator where the hair can be reused on different characters? If that's the case, then it's really a Unity-side problem and I can't give you a solution off the top of my head. But it sounds like something that shouldn't be very difficult to achieve.

[@tiraniks1158]

Comment for support)

[@CGDive]

Thanks, man!

[@SivanandRavi90]

Should I forget about regenerate rig(rigifiy) and weight painting once the game rig has been seperated?

[@CGDive]

Generally, weight painting should not be a problem. Your game rig is now your "deform" rig so you can paint using it. As re-generate, that can indeed be problematic. Have you tried our addon Game Rig Tools? It automates the game-rig creation process so you will have a lot more freedom. kzbin.info/www/bejne/n4ulqWR_bNugh5I

[@SivanandRavi90]

@@CGDive Yes I am using the Game rig tools addon and it's awesome.. it works perfectly for blender 4.0 as the addon is updated for that version. But unfortunately I'm using blender 4.1 beta as it's the only 4.xx version that doesn't crash for me while rendering, In blender 4.1 beta GRT's game rig generation works perfectly but animation baking doesn't work so I'm manually baking the animation. Can't wait for grt 4.1 update.

[@misterphiliper]

I made an Asset Pack for a Game with about 75 ue4 mannequin animations, which looked really decent, but than i realiized that the feet are slightly shaking... I really Hope this Video will Help me fix this 🙏 anyway, thanks for the content ❤️

[@CGDive]

I don't think this video contains the answer. Are the feet shaking after export? It could be because of the FBX settings. And someone found out that changing the IK solver in Blender removes some of the shaking,

[@misterphiliper]

@@CGDive yes when i Export the Charakter from ue4 to Blender and Back without ans changes it has the same issue. Maybe i got to reconnect the imported ik Bones... Or i got to start using the addon you are using but i Hope i can fix the created Animations with a simple click, Like always in Blender :D

[@sanketvaria9734]

what about controller bones? Can I use TGT bones as controller bones, or I have to make another entire set of bones which would then control TGT bones since TGT bones are controlling Deformation bones?

[@CGDive]

The TGT bones are the first "layer" of control over the deforming bones. They are useful because you can set up any hierarchy and constraints on them without messing up the DEF bones.

[@sanketvaria9734]

@@CGDive quick question. What if I want to only export one single animation for unity? There comes times when I have a working character in game and then either i have to bring one new animation or edit one.

[@CGDive]

@@sanketvaria9734 I use UE more than Unity so I am not sure what the exact workflow is. I have had questions from people who had trouble importing only the skeleton and the solution was to export mesh + skeleton from Blender. Then it doesn't matter if it contains one or many animations.

[@sanketvaria9734]

@@CGDive I use unreal as well and I face same problem in there too. What if I just want a single animation and not entire nla strip?

[@CGDive]

@@sanketvaria9734 This is my playlist about UE. In the 4th video about export, I show how to control which animations are exported from the scene using the NLA. So if you only have one animation in the NLA, only one will be exported :) kzbin.info/aero/PLdcL5aF8ZcJvS4rui1CyKuFQLBGE4rnas Unity works slightly differently. I have a playlist about it as well, just check the channel :)

[@F_U]

I don't think those four bones per limb will work with Unity IK, can anything be done about it?

[@CGDive]

"Those four bones" meaning the bones you get from Rigify? You can make Rigify generate one deform bone for each limb part. You can also reparent the def bones as shown in the video, to create a hierarchy that is more suitable for Unity.

[@mikem727]

Import the unreal armature into blender and or program of choice and bind it to every humanoid character. Forget about rebuilding the wheel, buy or use free rigs and get to creating, not let the pros at blender headquarters do all the technical stuff I'm too dumb to even comprehend, blender is awesome and free..... Did I mention it's FREE!!!

[@CGDive]

Bind it to human character and then what? Animate in full FK mode? :) And the pros at Blender headquarters are not doing anything about integration with game engines (because it's not their job). Hey, don't forget that Blender is FREE! :P

[@jetvlz8592]

Unfortunately Arigify doesn't seem to work on Blender 3.1.2.

[@CGDive]

Yeah... I've been in touch with the creator of the addon. I'll try to ping him :)

[@mdp7193]

Noob question, I can't grasp exactly why we'd need to use the TGT right method, can someone explain it to me simply? Like what exactly happens to the original rig, I get lost in the midst of all the manips

[@CGDive]

TGT creates a "cushion" between your Deform bones and Controls. That allows you to have any hierarchy you want for your Deform bones. Without the TGT layer the deform bones may need to be parented to control, thus making a mess of the hierarchy. Check out our add-on Game Rig Tools. It automates a similar process. Also, watch our other videos to understand my workflow. kzbin.info/www/bejne/n4ulqWR_bNugh5I Feel free to ask more questions if anything isn't clear :)

[@mdp7193]

@@CGDive Ohh I see thank you a lot!!

[@Rinka17]

where i can get the super hero character in 17:50

[@CGDive]

haha super hero :D it's in my free models toshicg.gumroad.com/l/cgdive_free

[@kloa4219]

I get a weird error with Arigify where it ends up combining my metarig and rigify rig together. From what I could tell, it's complaining about multiple rigs: Python: Traceback (most recent call last): File "C:\Users\xxxx\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.91\scripts\addons\Arigify\__init__.py", line 611, in execute self.add_copy_to_orig_collections(orig_obj, middle_obj) File "C:\Users\xxxx\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.91\scripts\addons\Arigify\__init__.py", line 565, in add_copy_to_orig_collections c.objects.link(copy_obj) RuntimeError: Error: Object 'rig.001' already in collection 'Master Collection' location: :-1

[@CGDive]

Haven't encountered that error. You should talk with Lazlo, the developer about specific errors.

[@hammermao]

got the same error Hopefully we can come up with a solution

[@hammermao]

ive found a solution, just before you convert the rig create a new collection, put the rigify rig in there, and then try the arigify. it should work if your error was the same as mine

[@CGDive]

@@hammermao Thanks for sharing the solution. But definitely get in touch with the dev to make sure you're getting the most accurate info.